POC vs. Just say Black
One of the side effects of being raised to not see color, is to see race as a negative with no positives. This is probably because of how our ancestors treated non-white people, and we definitely know it. We know how our elders and neighbors talk about it, and maybe how we ourselves were raised and may have felt in the past. Because of this, we moved from not seeing color, to seeing only enough to acknowledge it the very least. So, we invented “people of color” or “POC.” It sounds nice, acknowledging that there are non-white people, but it ultimately lumps everybody together in one umbrella term.
The general consensus from different people I’ve read online, is that it’s better to just acknowledge race. Just say Black or Asian, etc. If you’re talking about Black people, just say Black people. It’s not taboo or bad, I promise. To think of it as such is to embrace our racism.
Too often, white people try to do the “we’re all one race, the human race,” mantra to sound accepting and tolerant(the bare minimum), but it really bypasses any of the work we have to do to dismantle white supremacy without actually dismantling it. Saying POC/People/Person of Color is a blanket term, and it’s lazy. We can do better.
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